


Knot As Expected

by Trelkez



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Knotting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 10:35:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1185255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trelkez/pseuds/Trelkez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Congratulations," Lydia said, shoving a bouquet of flowers at Stiles. "You have a date for Valentine’s Day."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knot As Expected

"Congratulations," Lydia said, shoving a bouquet of flowers at Stiles. "You have a date for Valentine's Day."

Stiles checked the flowers to make sure there weren't any plants in there that would kill his cat. Sunflowers and yellow roses, those were safe, right? Wait, why was Lydia bringing him flowers? Wait — _wait_. Really?

"I thought you had a date with that guy from the physics department," he said, eyeing the flowers. Not that he didn't love Lydia, of course he loved Lydia, but two people could only break up with each other so many times. They'd hit their limit a while back. He'd thought they were agreed on that, but Valentine's Day did weird things to people. "Not that I don't appreciate—"

"Please," Lydia said. "Those are for you to take to your date."

"Oh," Stiles said, relieved, then, " _oh_. I told you I wasn't going to let you set me up again, Lydia! I said no! I distinctly remember saying no."

Lydia was already halfway up the stairs. He dropped the flowers on a side table and hurried up after her, catching up with her just in time to see her throw open his closet door and start digging through his shirts.

She handed him a dark blue shirt.

"Open collar, sleeves rolled up," she said, gesturing for him to get on with it. "You told me you wouldn't let me set you up with any more of my friends from the university. Derek isn't from the university, so hurry up and change your shirt, you're going to be late."

"I'm not going," Stiles said, tossing the shirt onto his bed. "I don't care where he's from. No more horrible first dates with people I don't know. I _suck_ at dating, you have no idea."

"I—" _have a pretty good idea_ , she was going to say; he knew she was, she had that look in her eye. He watched her bite it back, lift her chin, and regroup. "You aren't that bad."

"Lies," he said.

" _Stiles_." Lydia folded her arms, narrowing her eyes in that _not taking your bullshit today_ way she had. It was unfairly attractive. "Do you want to get laid today?"

"...Yes?" he said, mostly sure that was true. He was tired and hungry and he had to get up early tomorrow, but he could probably fit getting laid into his schedule. "This isn't a _prostitution_ date, is it?"

"Like I'd spend that much money on your sex life," Lydia said, rolling her eyes. "Put on the shirt."

He gave in, pulling his T-shirt off over his head.

"If I text you an SOS, you'd better come up with a fake emergency _immediately_ ," Stiles said, taking the pants and belt she held out.

"I promise," Lydia said, nodding quickly. "But you won't need it. You're going to like Derek."

"That's what you said the last three times," Stiles pointed out.

"Trust me," Lydia said.

That was _also_ what she'd said the last three times. Stiles sighed, thinking longingly of his X-Box and his drawer full of takeout menus.

"Hale's on Main at eight," Lydia said. "He'll be the unfairly sexy bearded one in the corner."

"Define _unfairly sexy_ ," Stiles said. "Chris Hemsworth sexy or Ben Whishaw sexy? Narrow it down for me."

"Just ask for Derek," Lydia said, patting his arm. "You're welcome."

*

"Are you Derek?"

Derek — please, _please_ let that be Derek — looked up slowly, gaze taking a leisurely detour around Stiles' everything before finally making it up to his eyes.

" _You're_ Stiles," he said, disbelieving. Was that a good sign or a bad one? Did Derek like what he saw, or had Lydia talked Stiles up so much that Derek had been expecting the second coming of Jude Law and was now disappointed that he got Stiles instead? Which was it?

That right there was why Stiles hated it when Lydia set him up with her incredibly hot, nerdy friends. One of the reasons. One of the many reasons.

"Guilty," Stiles said, sliding into the booth across from Derek. They were in one of Lydia's favorite restaurants, dimly lit and quiet, in a tiny, secluded booth. All they would need to complete the cliché would be a candle on the table, which — oh, great, there was the server. With a candle.

"My name is Cora," she said, making a huge production out of lighting the candle and putting it down on the table. "I'll be your server." She gave Stiles a weirdly intense once-over, smirking. "Nice flowers."

Oh, yeah.

"These are, uh, for you," Stiles said, awkwardly setting the flowers on the table in front of Derek. He didn't usually give men flowers, but Lydia had insisted. "Happy Valentine's Day?"

He smiled at Derek, trying to play it off.

"I didn't get you anything," Derek said, eyebrows drawing together. "I could — do you want—?"

"I don't need anything," Stiles said hastily, wondering what exactly Derek would've done if he'd said, _yes, absolutely I want flowers or chocolates or whatever_. Would he have left Stiles in the restaurant to run off and find something at the last minute? "Except the wine list."

Wine: it couldn't always fix an awkward date, but it could at least make said date a lot more bearable. He could already tell this was at least a half-bottle date, and he'd only been sitting at Derek's table for two minutes.

"Derek picked out a couple bottles," Cora says. A couple _bottles?_ "Depending on what you decide to order, isn't that right, Derek?"

Either Derek and Cora knew each other, or Cora was the most bizarrely rude server Stiles had ever encountered.

"Then we'd better decide what to order," Stiles said, willing her to go away.

"I'll get you some water for your flowers," Cora said, snatching the flowers up off the table and disappearing.

Derek was clutching his closed menu in both hands, looking horribly embarrassed.

"Friend of yours?" Stiles asked, flipping his menu open. Whoa, pink. This probably wasn't their usual menu, unless their usual menu came in Valentine's colors and had hearts printed in the borders.

Derek frowned, thumbs worrying at the corners of his menu. "You don't know Cora?"

"Never met her before." Was he supposed to know Cora? Was she locally famous? "You obviously know her, though. I think she's screwing with you."

"She's my sister," Derek said. Ah. Definitely screwing with him, then. "She wasn't supposed to be our server. This isn't her section."

"She doesn't seem like the type to let that stop her," Stiles said.

Derek's mouth lifted on one side for a fraction of a second. Stiles didn't think it technically counted as a smile, but it was in the neighborhood of a smile. It was smile-adjacent.

God, Derek was gorgeous. If Stiles could somehow rescue this date from the snarky sibling downward spiral it was on, he would definitely owe Lydia a thank you.

"This started off weird, right, with those flowers and your sister," Stiles said, lowering his menu. "Can we start over? Order some food, do the usual first date twenty questions?"

"Yeah," Derek said, smile a little brighter this time. "We can do that."

*

Stiles was going to have to rent out a billboard to thank Lydia. Hire a band. Buy out a greenhouse. Derek was too awesome; a simple _thank you_ wouldn't suffice.

Derek liked comic books and Adult Swim and pizza. Derek was snippy with his sister bordering on outright mean, but it didn't seem to faze either of them, which meant Derek might be able to keep up with Stiles when the first date good behavior went away. Derek had amazing taste in wine, and watching him drink it was an experience unto itself.

There had to be a flaw. It was possible that most of the things Stiles liked about Derek were things most people would consider flaws, but there had to be something else, a catch somewhere; first dates never went this well.

"What is your degree in?" Stiles asked, working his way up to what Derek did for a living. 50% of his first dates tanked the moment he knew what their jobs were, so he tended to save those questions for last.

"Hospitality management," Derek said, amused. Why was that funny?

"Mine is in criminology," Stiles said when it became apparent Derek wasn't going to return the question. Derek made a noncommittal noise, slowly turning his wine glass by the stem. "I'm a deputy sheriff."

Derek smirked at Stiles. "So you're trained to be observant."

"I'm incredibly observant," Stiles said. For example, he had a feeling he was being mocked, even if he couldn't tell why. "I think so, anyway."

"Tell me something about myself, then," Derek said, leaning back and folding his arms.

Stiles squinted at him, debating what to go with first. Derek had been staring at his mouth all night, but leading with _you want me to blow you real bad_ wasn't a good idea, and anyway, Derek was too smirky for that to be the secret he thought Stiles hadn't caught on to.

"You're a werewolf," Stiles said.

Derek didn't look impressed. Not that one, then.

"You're in a werewolf restaurant, and I went with the tasting menu specifically designed for werewolves," Derek pointed out. "If you didn't know by now, I'd worry about the sheriff's department."

"I give, then," Stiles said, making a defeated gesture with both hands. "What is it you wanted me to guess?"

Derek grinned. "I—"

"Derek." A woman in a white chef's coat stepped up to their booth, tapping Derek on the arm. "I need to talk to you."

"Do you know _everyone_ in this restaurant?" Stiles wondered out loud, scrutinizing the woman interrupting their dinner. She looked a lot like Cora. Too much like Cora. "Are you _related_ to everyone in this restaurant?"

The chef ignored him, gripping Derek's arm. "Now, Derek."

"This had better be important, Laura," Derek said, casting an apologetic look at Stiles. "I'll be right back. Please don't go anywhere."

"I'll be here," Stiles said. Right, like he was going to up and leave the first good date he'd had in years. "Promise."

He winked at Derek. Derek rolled his eyes, but he smiled, too.

"I'll be right back," Derek said again.

*

Stiles waited.

*

Five minutes in, he started to worry. Laura had made it sound urgent, whatever it was; he hoped Derek didn't have a family emergency.

*

Ten minutes in, he remembered that fake emergencies were how Lydia had gotten him out of most of the dates she'd sent him on.

*

Fifteen minutes in, he texted Lydia: _ **I think my date ditched me**_.

_**????**_ she texted back. _**What did you do?**_

_**Nothing!**_ He looked up, leaning a bit out of the booth to get a better view of the restaurant. Derek wasn't anywhere in sight. Neither was Cora. One of the other servers, a badass-looking blonde chick, saw him looking and gave him a sympathetic half-frown. Fuck. _**His sisters work here. One of them came and got him, and I haven't seen him since.**_

_**Maybe he has a family thing going on,**_ Lydia replied.

_**Then why do the waiters keep giving me 'so you got ditched on Valentine's Day and now you're stuck with the bill' looks?** _ He pocketed his phone, rubbing both hands over his face.

"Hey." The blonde server set a shot of something clear in front of him. "On the house."

"Oh my god," Stiles groaned into his hands. It was official. Derek had ditched him. "But it was going _so well_."

"Derek isn't a bad guy," the blonde said, nudging the shot glass. Stiles drank it down: vodka. Pure vodka. Oh, okay, wow, ew. "If he'd known, he wouldn't have—" She bit her lip, looking off into the distance. "You don't owe anything, there's no bill. I don't know if Derek is coming back or not, so I'd get it if you wanted to go."

"Does everyone here know Derek?" Stiles grabbed his jacket, pulling it on. So what if he'd promised? He didn't owe it to Derek to sit in an empty booth waiting on someone who wasn't coming back. Especially not if everyone who'd just watched him get abandoned _knew Derek_ , fuck, that was even worse than if it'd happened in front of strangers.

"Well, yeah," the blonde said, raising her eyebrows. "He's the owner. Him and Laura."

That's what Derek had been waiting for Stiles to figure out? That it was Derek's restaurant?

"Thinks he's funny," Stiles muttered, hating that it was kind of funny, that if Derek hadn't run off they'd be joking about it. "Lydia didn't say—" He shook his head. "Whatever. Thanks, I guess."

He grabbed the flowers out of the beer glass Cora had put them in.

"I'm leaving," he said, knowing that if Derek were anywhere in the restaurant, he'd hear.

*

He made it halfway down the street.

"Stiles!"

He stopped, debating whether or not he wanted to turn around.

"I'm sorry," Derek said, closer now. Stiles could hear him approaching, his steps slow, hesitant. "I didn't mean to just leave you there."

"Fooled me," Stiles said, giving in and turning around. Derek's gaze dropped to the flowers Stiles was still holding, his mouth twisting sadly. Oh, fuck Derek anyway, he was the one who'd ditched the flowers. "I hope your sister is okay, man, I do, but at least tell me there was _some_ emergency, because that felt really shitty."

Derek took a deep breath, then another.

"Look," Derek said, ducking his head and staring at the ground. "I—" He stuck his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunching in. "I like you."

That wasn't what Stiles had expected to hear.

"I like you," Derek said again, clearer. Stiles hadn't imagined it the first time, then. "But you should know — I—" He sighed. "You're here under false pretenses."

What the hell did _that_ mean? Was Derek married? If Lydia had set him up with a married man, he was going to — no, that didn't make any sense, Lydia would never have set him up with a married man.

"I don't," Derek started, then stopped, hunching in even further. "I know some people don't have to be — invested — to do that, and that's fine, it's fine, if you — I mean, obviously you want to, and that's fine—" How many times was Derek going to say _fine?_ "But I don't — I don't."

Stiles had no idea what was going on. None.

"You don't..." he prompted, raising his eyebrows.

Derek shook his head.

"I don't," he said, as though agreeing with Stiles. "I've never been in the kind of relationship where—" He flushed. "I've never."

He'd never — had Lydia set him up to be someone's _gay experiment?_ Holy — no, that didn't make any sense either, Lydia wouldn't do that.

Derek was still talking. Stiles tuned back in mid-sentence.

"—didn't set up that profile," Derek was saying. What? What profile? "I never saw yours, either. Cora signed me up for it, she was the one who contacted you. I thought she knew you, she made it sound like — Laura found out and came to tell me right away, and I wasn't sure how to tell you. I'm sor—"

"What profile?"

Derek looked up at Stiles, frowning.

"Your profile on — you know — on the website," he said, blushing furiously.

"I don't have any online dating profiles," Stiles said slowly. Lydia. _Freaking Lydia._ "My friend Lydia just showed up this afternoon and told me I had a date for Valentine's Day. I thought she'd set me up with someone she knew, she never said..."

"Oh," Derek said, eyes wide. He was still beet red under the streetlights. "So you're not—" He winced. "You didn't—"

"What website, Derek?" That was the key to all of this. What website had Lydia signed him up for that had made Derek run for the hills? Not forevermates.com, that was for sure. "Come on. Tell me. It must be something awful, if you can't say it without blushing." The blushing was really freaking cute, but any thoughts of finding Derek cute were on hold until Stiles found out what the hell Lydia had done to him. "Is it one of those sugardaddy websites? I'm not _that_ broke, I swear."

"Hot For Knot," Derek said, so quietly Stiles almost didn't hear him.

"I think you mean Hot or Not," Stiles said, which didn't make any sense, that wasn't a dating website. Was it? Had the internet fundamentally changed since the last time he'd paged through giving everyone's picture a thumbs up? "Right?"

"Hot. For. Knot," Derek repeated, looking tortured. "Dot com."

"Knot," Stiles echoed, hearing the difference, and then, "oh my god, Lydia put me up on a website for _casual knotting encounters?_ "

Derek looked like he wanted the earth to open up and swallow him whole.

"Oh my god," Stiles said again, and, "oh my _god_ ," again, and, "oh my—"

How was there a knotting hook-up website Stiles had never heard of? Why would Lydia think that was in any way a good idea? Stiles wasn't going to let some strange dude knot him, there was no way that was a thing that would happen. Granted, he hadn't had a ton of casual sex in his time, but he when he had, he'd inevitably wanted to bolt the second it was over. If anyone should've known that, Lydia should have.

Then again, he'd told Lydia not two weeks ago that werewolf sex was the best sex, so maybe she'd just assumed that by _werewolf sex_ he meant knotting, and not guys strong enough to fuck him up against a wall, women strong enough to pin him down. _Strong_ was the key factor. A hint of fang wasn't bad, either. Stiles stood by it: werewolf sex was the best sex.

Werewolf sex _with knotting_ would probably be _fantastic_ sex, but Stiles had yet to meet the person he'd trust to do it. Derek was apparently the same way. That was good, right? Being on the same page?

Maybe they'd get there together, if they survived the next five minutes. Nothing could be worse than the hell of awkwardness and mutual embarrassment they were currently stuck in. If Stiles made it out of this conversation with a second date, advancing their hypothetical future relationship to the knotting level would be a breeze.

"Let me see if I've got this right," Stiles said, holding up his hands. "Your sister — your other sister — interrupted our date, which was going great, to tell you that I wasn't so much into the dating part as I was—" _Hot for your knot_ , he was about to say, but Derek made a pained noise, cutting him off. "And you, what, abandoned me for twenty minutes because you weren't sure how to say _thanks, but no thanks?_ "

"I was having a really good time," Derek said, staring at the ground again. "I was already thinking about our next date." Stiles' heart didn't skip a beat at that, nope. "I don't—" The tension in his shoulders had to be killing him. "I don't have sex with people I don't know." _Anymore_ was heavily implied, but Stiles wasn't going to ask. Not yet. "Even if you'd wanted to go out on a second date, I wouldn't have — there wouldn't have been sex. Not for a while. And Laura told me you only wanted sex."

"You were disappointed," Stiles said, wishing he were a better person, so that Derek's disappointment and sadfaces wouldn't make him quite so happy. "Okay, well, next time you think I've done something that disappoints you, tell me to my face instead of hiding out in the back of your restaurant, how's that?" Derek looked up sharply. Stiles pointed at him. "That's right. Found out it was your restaurant."

"Next time?" Derek said, guarded.

Oh.

"I had a really good time, too," Stiles said, taking a step toward Derek, then another. "For our second date, I'd like to go somewhere your sisters _don't_ work."

"Cora was trying to help," Derek said, sounding a lot like he was repeating something he'd heard. From Laura, if Stiles had to guess. "She doesn't know ... a lot of things. She said she thought it would help if I _relieved some tension_." He shook his head. "She's sorry."

"Lydia _will_ be sorry," Stiles said. Oh, would she be sorry. "To be fair, she never said she was setting me up for romance. She asked me if I wanted to get laid, and I said yes." Derek's frown deepened. "Not that I'm exclusively about getting laid. I mean, do I like sex, yes, I like sex a lot, but not — knotting website hook-ups not required, all right? I can wait for that."

Derek flushed again.

That sounded an awful lot like _I can wait for you to knot me_ , didn't it? Which, yeah, Stiles had kind of been thinking it, but god, he hadn't meant for it to come out of his mouth, now or ever.

"For you," he said, making a _disregard everything I just_ said gesture with both hands. "Can we just — can we stop talking about this for now?"

"Yes," Derek said quickly, shoulders slumping with relief.

"Great," Stiles said, sighing.

Now they were just two dudes silently facing each other on the sidewalk, both clearly trying not to think about knotting. This wasn't actually any less awkward.

"Oh, here," Stiles said, holding out the flowers. "These are still yours. They're—" _technically from Lydia_ , he didn't say, because Derek smiled when he took them. "You should give me your number."

He saved Derek's number into his phone, then sent him a text. _**This is Stiles**_. Derek's phone beeped in his pocket. Derek smiled again, taking a step forward.

"I want to kiss you goodnight," Derek said, gaze searching Stiles' face, one hand hovering in the space between them.

"Totally onboard with that," Stiles said, nodding. "Kiss me all you want. I am go for—"

For someone who couldn't talk about knotting without blushing like a twelve-year-old, Derek was a _really_ dirty first date kisser.

"You're welcome, Derek," the blonde server shouted from the restaurant doorway. "I told you it would be fine if you talked it out!"

"Definitely going somewhere else next time," Stiles said, making a shooing gesture at her behind Derek's back.

Derek gave a tired, relieved laugh and splayed a hand over Stiles' back, keeping him close.

*

" _Hot For Knot_ , Lydia," Stiles shouted into his phone.

"How was _I_ supposed to know," she shouted back, louder. He ought to know better than to try to out-yell a banshee. "Do you have any idea how much you talk about werewolf dick?"

"You could have told me! Then you would have known!"

"I said I was sorry!" She hadn't. "It worked out, didn't it?"

Derek had backed away from him slowly, absently rubbing at his mouth with one hand, bright yellow flowers loosely held in the other. Stiles already had four texts from Derek on his phone. They had a second date in two days, because Derek had made a show of booking a reservation on his phone for a restaurant he emphatically did not own.

"Maybe it worked," Stiles said, begrudging her even that much. "Maybe. We'll see."

"It worked," Lydia said. "You're welcome."

*

"My name is Erica," said the blonde server from Hale's. "I'll be your server."

" _No_ ," Derek said.

"Oh, god," Stiles said, clutching the wine list like it was his only friend. "Do you work at every restaurant in town?"

"Only the ones with werewolf menus," Erica said. "Hint: there are exactly two. What did you do, Derek, call up the only other restaurant in your contacts list?"

That _was_ what he'd done. Stiles gave himself full permission to find Derek's embarrassment adorable.

Erica tilted her head, giving Stiles the most terrifying smile he'd ever seen. "Can I start you off with something to drink?"


End file.
